There's Eggplant, There's Pork

People want to talk by phone.  That’s natural.  Sure.  How about 3:00PM.  I have quite a few different clients though and they often have different calendars.  I’m sure there is a very straightforward way to sync them all across multiple different email accounts, across Microsoft and Google and Apple and Wechat but I haven’t figured out how to do it other than to manually enter them all.  Commitments that seemed sensible at the time of agreement become stacked up like subways waiting to enter a station. 

The fluid art of phone etiquette is has me now preparing on nearly every call as it comes to the end of its allotted time to announce that “I have another call coming up on the hour.  I’ll need to drop off.”  Sometimes that’s the case.  Sometimes it isn’t.  But if I budgeted 30 minutes for this, I’m not sure it makes sense to go on and on for too long after.  Often times I don’t need to.  Someone else does it for me. 

This evening I will make the dinner.  What’s in the fridge?  What’s quick?  There’s eggplant, there’s pork.  My wife will lead an English class this night on Wechat.  I am the appointed native speaker.  She wants to talk about Sloppy Joes.  I am ready.  Yes.  What you’ve written is all grammatically correct. 

And there are peas to take out of the colander and little purple sweet potatoes to snatch from the oven.  My older one has put the eggplant on the table.  “Sure.  Go ahead.  Dig in.  No need to wait.”  And the pork and parsley stir-fry is just about done.  But its time for me to read about Sloppy Joes to this online class.  And at the end of this class there is a call on the half hour.  I pop a piece of pork in my mouth.  Not bad.  I consider what it will taste like in an hour or so. 

Thursday, 03/23/17